People, environments, extraction, and sustainable futures.
I study how communities navigate environmental and economic transformation—and how extraction, infrastructure, governance, and development shape possibilities for social sustainability.
How do communities navigate environmental and economic transformations, and what shapes their capacity to build sustainable futures?
Community-based ethnography · Rural Arizona · Extractive communities · Disaster recovery · DevelopmentConnecting environment, extraction, governance, and community life.
My scholarship integrates environmental anthropology, political ecology, development anthropology, and community-based ethnography to examine local perspectives and practices and their intersections with global challenges.
Environment
Environmental change, livelihoods, and everyday community life.
Extraction
Legacy mining communities and life beyond extraction.
Governance
Participation, institutions, development, and local decision-making.
Sustainability
Community-led approaches to infrastructure and social sustainability.
Research in motion.
Current and foundational projects form a connected program of scholarship.
Infrastructure: A Community-Driven Approach to Social Sustainability in Rural Arizona
An ongoing research program examining community-led strategies for promoting social sustainability through infrastructure development in Arizona's legacy mining towns.
View project →Nostalgic bonds and sustainable action.
My 2026 article in Resources Policy examines affective strategies and sustainable actions in Arizona’s legacy mining communities.
Read the publication recordGrounded in Arizona, comparative in scope.
My research primarily focuses on the Southwestern United States and includes comparative studies in Ghana and Zambia, in addition to disaster-recovery research conducted in other contexts.
Research locations →